favorite food of whoever was there. That was
her way of expressing her love and of patch
ing up hostilities. And it worked."
Because of her position in the family the
Afrikaner woman has been able to exert a
very strong influence on her children and on
patterns of social intercourse. Which is why
Marina Geertsema can affirm: "Women,
more than anybody else, have kept tradition
al values alive." By acting as custodians of
"the system," women have maintained both
the good and the evil inherent to South Afri
can society. But Jeanette Ferreira is optimis
tic: "I can see a whole younger generation of
mothers like myself emerging, who are lov
ingly but resolutely beginning to liberate their
children from all the preconceived roles."
IN ALMOST EVERY SPHERE one finds evi
dence of an old Afrikaner order break
ing down. There are still those whose
lives are ruled primarily by ideology,
the "super Afrikaners," while others
have adopted more open value systems.
Hardy Botha, one of the most dazzlingly
Ayoke of barbed wire burdens South
Africa. Farmers along the terrorist-prone
border with Zimbabwe check fences. Their
wives carry machine guns; children go to
school in armored cars. In the black town
ship of Soweto, a mother and children
stroll toward an armored vehicle (right).
Although apartheid prompts soul search
ing among the younger generation, the
question lingers in a darkening sky: Will
South Africa ever be whole?
imaginative artists in the country, has had his
work accepted by international exhibitions.
His very name suggests the dichotomy be
tween the worlds of his youth and his maturi
ty: By birth a staunch Gerhardus, he prefers
the more congenial name Hardy (which
reaches back to his mother's Scottish ances
try). "I'm scared by nationalism," he says
bluntly. "I grew up with it, and I know how
destructive it can be. It is shaped by the same
instinct that causes gangs and mobs, and my
worst nightmares are about mobs: You can
see that in my paintings, can't you? All those
carnivals and witches' sabbaths are a way of
exorcising the idea of the mob."
In the end it comes down to a question of
definition. And Breyten Breytenbach, now
living in exile in Paris, eloquently makes the
point: "I am an Afrikaans-speaking South
African, bound to Africa, and living in
Europe for the time being. But one cannot
escape from what one is."
On the bistro terrace where we sit, late
autumn sun beats on Breyten's tanned face;
passersby glance at us, intrigued by a lan
guage most of them have never
heard. Then the world streams
on again. To be an Afrikaner is a
schizophrenic experience. "We
belong to Africa, yet too many of
us think of ourselves as Europe
an," says Breyten. "That's why
politics in South Africa is such a
deadly serious business. With
everything we do, our whole fu
ture is at stake."
Africa and Europe: Always it
comes back to this. The Africa
discovered by early trekboers,
who survived because they had
learned to tune in to the heart
beat of a wild continent, but
which they betrayed when apart
heid was devised to justify white
European supremacy.
"The enduring tragedy of the Afrikaner,"
says Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, erstwhile
leader of the white opposition in the Parlia
ment, who quit his position to explore other
democratic alternatives, "is that he is a white
African who refuses to come to terms with his
own continent and its people. Most of them
still wish to be here but apart, and after more
than three centuries the sadness of the Afrika
ner is that he still has not come home."
0[
National Geographic,October 1988
584